Introducing Xoba Cards
Tribal knowledge. Go to any organization, and there will be that one person who’s been around forever that just knows how everything works. That person doesn’t document anything, and everyone knows that things will be hard if that person leaves. In reality, we all possess a bit of tribal knowledge.
Take a minute. You’re the lead on an initiative. You’ve created a plan in Google Sheets, created the tasks in Asana, wrote the specifications in Confluence, and added all the launch materials (e.g., blog copy, emails, one-pagers, etc.) to Google Drive. You know where all that information is, even though it’s spread across 3 or more applications. Do you know who doesn’t know? Everyone else. Sure, you shared it with them in a Slack channel or via email, but no one will remember what your spreadsheet is called, and they’re not going to dig through their messages to find it. So what do they do? They ping you and ask, ‘Where is that doc that has an outline of the launch?’ For the fifth time that week, you go to the doc, copy the link, and then send it to your colleague or boss.
We have all these amazing applications and tools at our disposal today that have made our work lives better, but we’re still struggling with sharing, discovering, and keeping track of information. Why? Because it takes a ton of work to manually back-link everything across these applications, and even when you do that, people are still asking you for the master doc because they don’t know where it is. All of these tools we use are actually creating additional information silos.
When we launched Xoba, we believed that building an outstanding search experience in the workplace would solve this problem. In reality, it didn’t. It helped employees more quickly find their own information that they had some recollection of, but when it came to finding the information they didn’t create (e.g., a project plan), it fell short. Our users still resorted to pinging their co-workers on Slack. After lots of listening and learning, we’ve created Xoba Cards.
A better way to discover, find, and keep track of information without always looking for it.
Xoba Cards are the new way to organize information across all of your work applications or websites. In a single space, you can have a Google Doc, a Confluence Doc, Asana tasks, and a link to a blog post.
We’ve seen our early users create Cards to organize information for new employees. Rather than giving them a doc with a bunch of links, hiring managers can use Xoba to create specific groupings on information that’s relevant to new employees. Then the new employee knows what is actually relevant to them. Product and Project Managers can build Cards to keep track of all the active projects and initiatives. Account Executives leverage Cards to keep track of their relevant reports and have a single place to hold documents they reference frequently. Take Cards and add a universal search bar on top to search across all your work apps in a single location, and you’ve created a better work experience for yourself.
We’re working towards a world where you don’t have to lift a finger to discover this information. We’ve started with your most recent searches and top searches. Soon, Xoba will dynamically display cards such as recently modified documents, items that need your attention, items your team is working on, and more. These Cards will dynamically show information across all of your work applications, not just one. We’re just getting started. Xoba Cards have so much potential. Like we did with the initial version of our product, we reached out to our users, listened, and iterated….fast. We’ll be doing the same with Xoba Cards.
Think about the ability to quickly and easily share these cards with your colleagues so they can have the right information. And whenever you update information in a Xoba card, it’s automatically reflected for all the individuals you shared the card with. Not only do they have the most up to date information at their fingertips, but you also don’t have to download/upload the information in another place.
Xoba Cards will soon dynamically push your information based on your behaviors, team behaviors, and your organization’s behaviors. Think about having a single space where you can see all the items you’ve recently viewed, the things your teammates have been working on, and the items that are waiting for your review/input. Or, having a view that displays potentially duplicate documents—all without you having to lift a finger.
At Xoba, we believe in enabling employees to discover and share knowledge without barriers. Xoba Cards is a perfect example of how employees can organize and share information regardless of the application that the information lives in.
We wouldn’t be here without our first set of users. Want to join them in helping us shape the future of Xoba and information sharing? You can sign up for our early access here. We can’t wait to see what comes next.
